Those worried about self-driving trucks taking your jobs, don't!

Honestly we WILL have self driving trucks its absolutely inevitible.....someday. that day is not today or tomorrow or even this year. Absolute "best" case for those types of trucks is you will have literal road trains where you will have a driver up front leading a convoy of several other driverless rigs down the road within the next decade or two. You MAY see limited use on private or very slow and local loads to get them to yards where they will be dropped and moved by a human with a yard dog.

The reasons why are many fold rangeing from liability, reliability, cost, how hard many actions will be, cost of having enoygh backup systems on board, legal issues, red tape, just how much retooling will be needed, entire infrastructure changes especialy for OTR units god forbid specialized, retraining of service techs to work on these systems, training enough computer techs to unbork the systems, establishing control towers, wireless connections, ability for real time construction changes, the fact unmanned rigs will be a HUGE target for literal bandits to run off roads and rob, insurance red tape.

And all of that is just off the top of my head. While driverless trucks arent a pipe dream. Them being widely implimented barring a tech singularity or some other equivlent major event within the next 20 to 30 years is basically 0 not imposible but highly unlikely.

 

I did think this news article was interesting. It shows a Waymo truck accident. Fortunately the truck went off the right side but imagine if a school bus or a charter bus full of NCAA champs was next to the Waymo truck when this occurred? The safety driver did not take emergency control (probably playing solitaire on his phone who knows).

Behind the scenes of Waymo’s worst automated truck crash

 

Not gonna happen in the lifetime of anyone that’s participating in this discussion .

will it happen someday ?
Probabaly .
Ain’t gonna be anytime soon .
They can’t even make a DEF tank level sensor that’s reliable .

think of all the sensors currently on vehicles and how often they fail .
adding 3000 more Sensors and 300 more computers and miles of wiring , just multiplies the problem .

then think of how incompetent the average mechanic technician at the stealership is , at identification of the problem and obtaining the new sensors and wiring and repairing the problem.
Think of how many weeks that takes now, for a normal truck.

think of how many Tesla’s crash when the owners set it on self driving mode and watch movies or nap .
The cars usually don’t even slow down , they drive for many many miles just fine staying on the road and then crash full speed into something .


Same with all the automobile manufacturers claiming they will not make any gasoline powered vehicles after 2035 .
It’s all feel good virtue signaling BS that will never happen .

 

Hello Nationwide Trucker Insurance……
Yes I’d like to insure my Autonomous Semi.
You mean it’s going to drive itself??
Yes!
Mmmmmm NO!

 

And in an instance when the driver attempts to take control how many crucial seconds before the autonomous system releases control?

The TuSimple incident, which happened in Tucson I think, demonstrated that problem IMHO.

The Founder CEO was speaking out both sides of his mouth in damage control saying things like he takes full responsibility in one sentence and laying complete blame at the two blokes in the cab a few sentences later.

 

Fully autonomous is a long way off and probably not in most of our lifetimes.

But there could be a scenario where trucks go on autopilot for stretches of time like commercial and passenger airlines and than low paid drivers take control at certain times. As the technology advances, there would be less and less driver interaction.

You could even have people take control of the truck from remote locations and pilot them like drones.

All of this would enable the trucks to drive longer and further. It would also increase the supply of drivers and depress wages in the industry.

 

1.6 million miles on 47 trucks with two non fault accidents in article. The fact they were driving 50 mph in 75 mph zones sounds like hard braking zone as people approach them .. PS as soon as the wrong element realizes that truck will ditch itself the roads ought to get interesting.

 

Before you make up your minds, I'd like you all to listen to this presentation from Elon Musk.

 

It is not a pipe dream by any means... to say that a engineer taking over for 1% of the time is not fully autonomous is techincally correct but is a bit of a ridiculous statement.. Because that means the truck is on its own 99% of the time... so if it drives 100k miles per year then only 1,000 of those miles have human interaction.... That's very very close to full autonomy....

Tu simple has done multiple runs with no driver in the cab.. And will continue to do so.. The technology will keep improving there is no question about that... it's a bit ridiculous for people to think that u can just snap your fingers and have self driving cars and trucks.. It takes years and decades to develop this technology but it will eventually be there. To think otherwise is just living in ignorance.

I'm sure the first people that thought of the smart phone - were told that it is a pipe dream. Look at where we are now... look how tech has changed the world in just 25 years since the late 90s.... It will keep evolving and growing throughout my lifetime and yours...

whether they run out of money or the big wigs keep investing is the only part that is unknown...

 

And to think Google, Apple, Tesla, you know companies who can keep throwing money into developing this tech, and the government not doing a #### thing to stop it means one thing.

It’s going to happen.


But i disagree on your point that 1000 of 100k miles doesn't mean its autonomous. Because the safety driver is there because of requirements and in case, as their insurance right now isnt satisfied. Once they can claim that ATs are safer then regular trucks then their insurance and the law will be modified to allow expansion.


It’s all about the numbers. If they can prove less crashes per year with ATs then the gooberment will allow it.